


History Lessons (written on skin, etched on bone)

by ambiguously



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Force Ghost(s), Gen, Storytelling, Trick or Treat: Trick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-07-18 22:11:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16127777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambiguously/pseuds/ambiguously
Summary: Luke tries to set the record straight, but no one hears, and no one listens except the one person who already knows.





	History Lessons (written on skin, etched on bone)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Thymesis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thymesis/gifts).



Luke Skywalker drifts through crowds, wandering world to world, listening to the stories of his own legend:

"The Death Star was ready to fire upon the little Rebellion, but Luke Skywalker swooped in with his X-Wing and blasted it away with a single shot."

"Darth Vader invaded Bespin, and Luke Skywalker fought him with his lightsaber to a draw."

"Luke Skywalker went to the Emperor himself, and fought him bare-handed, and cast him down, and the Empire was overthrown."

He hates the stories. He wants to break into the crowd each time, steal back his own story from the storytellers, tell the rest of the story. He wants them to remember the other heroes who fought those days, and the ones who fought their last while he escaped. There are brave men and women whose names have been forgotten, though not by Luke. He tries to tell them the truth, that Luke Skywalker was never a hero, that he was a scared boy who inherited power he barely understood, and who made mistakes that no one can forgive. The strangers retelling the tall tales of his life don't hear him, and don't care.

"Luke Skywalker tamed a rancor, and he rode it into the desert. That's where he's gone."

"It's not," Luke says, but none of the audience listens to him. "The desert would have been mercy."

"And you don't deserve that."

Luke doesn't turn. "No."

"Finally we agree on something." Ben's voice is more sad than bitter.

"We agreed on marl pears. We agreed they taste terrible."

"That doesn't count." After everything, Ben still manages to combine irritation and fondness in one sentence as well as his father ever did, with a dash of his mother's eternal impatience. Luke misses them both so much it hurts, and it hurts more to see them in Ben's face when he does turn to look. But pain is the point of this.

Luke walks away from the crowd, letting them gawk at the tales of a legend who never was. Ben follows him.

"I want to tell them," Luke says. "I want to explain."

"Who? Those credulous fools? You can try forever. They've already decided Luke Skywalker was the greatest Jedi the galaxy ever saw."

"I know."

"We both know they're wrong."

They stop. Around them, the street teems with traders, buyers, families, thieves, and more. Half a dozen different species live side by side in this city, and more live around this planet, drawn to its convenient location where multiple hyperspace lanes converge. It's a perfect place for a wanted man who intends to lose himself, hiding in the plainest of sight. The new Republic has risen and fallen. The First Order has done the same. They are in a new age, where old heroes and old villains are remembered as giants but whose faces are unknown and unnoticed, and whose ghosts can only be seen by a rare few.

He tells Ben, as he's told him a dozen times, a hundred, "I can't say I'm sorry. You know that. What happened between us is too big for apology, and there is nothing I can ever do to make it right."

Ben shrugs like he always does, his whole form going lopsided like it did when he was sixteen and all long arms and longer legs that seemed like they would keep growing forever. He was taller than Leia at fourteen, Luke at sixteen, and Han by eighteen. They told each other stories that Ben would grow in his mind and his spirit, and surpass the three of them. They pinned all their hopes on him, telling themselves one truly good thing would come out of the stunted Skywalker family tree, out of Han's empty past.

Luke destroyed their hopes himself. No apology can make up for that. No penance can wipe out that sin. His punishment is knowing that his story is passed down and over and across while hiding the enormous lie at the center, and no one will listen when he tells them otherwise. He's a shadow, forgotten, buried under his own legend.

"I forgive you," Ben says, and walks away. Luke follows, shaking his head, refusing the absolution. It's the same reason he can't join Han and Leia, not now, perhaps not ever. He could accept their anger at him, could accept their cold accusation that this is all his fault, could accept an eternity of their scorn even as his soul withers at the thought. He can't face the thought that they might forgive him, too.

Ben and Luke wander through the city streets as they have wandered together for years. Ben pauses to observe a street magician, his face caught in the same expression he wore at fourteen the first time the two of them passed a stranger in a crowd and instantly knew kinship. The street magician has a bit of the Force and may not even know that is where her gift in sleight of hand originates. There is no one to train her now. A coin clinks into her open pouch, and they wander on, but she watches them go, confusion on her face.

A vendor offers fried meat and vegetables on a stick: another coin, one stick. Ghosts don't eat. They do remember food, watching with hungry eyes.

Another corner, another pitched tent with a church springing up inside. "And Vader was flung down," flow the words from inside out into the street, polluting the gutters with more lies Luke cannot wash away.

"We could set up a church," Ben says. "We've got proof of life after death. Churches like that."

Luke doesn't like the sound of that. "Churches lead to congregations and followers. Look how well it turns out when anyone we're related to gets followers."

"The followers get killed."

Luke flinches. "Yes."

"And you still think it's all your fault."

"No churches."

"What about a tell-all datareel?" He holds out his hand as if blocking out a holocinema marquee. "The True Story of Luke Skywalker."

"Everyone would ignore it. They have their legends and their stories. I have to listen to them tell it all wrong."

They continue their walk. Sometimes they wander for hours. Sometimes they wander for months, passing from world to world like bad dreams. The heaviness of one planet becomes too much, and there is always the chance of recognition from someone who gets too close. Another busy city, another anonymous street, an exile in perfect hiding.

"You don't need to do this," Ben says, reading the traveling urge written on his face. "You could rest. I told you, I forgive you for what you did."

"I don't forgive me!" Luke shouts, and knows he is shouting. He drops his voice. "So it doesn't matter."

The strangers they pass see a mad old man babbling to himself, not a villainous wretch deceived by Snoke's powers for one awful hour that destroyed everything he cared about. None of them see the ghost beside him. Luke tries and tries to tell them, but no one will accept the truth: Luke Skywalker was no hero. He murdered someone who was as dear to him as his own son, and there is no absolution, no forgiveness, no deed so great to wipe his slate clean. He can only hide among them, his steps forever haunted by the ghost of the man he killed, the boy he loved, his greatest mistake.


End file.
